“It has been a privilege to work on this project. Knowing that we are having a direct impact on the future of these awe-inspiring moors
is very humbling. I hope that in the not too distant
future I’ll bring people up here and show them where we
worked and the difference we made” - Tom Grouse, Project Officer, Wildscapes

Moorland Conservation with Moors For The Future

Moors for the Future is a partnership to conserve large parts of the internationally important moors of the Peak District and South Pennines. Through a programme of new initiatives it aims to:

Raise awareness of why the moors are special and encourage responsible use and care of the landscape

Restore and conserve important recreational and natural moorland resources

Develop expertise on how to protect and manage the moors sustainably

The ‘MoorLife’ project was recently awarded €7 million (£5.5m) from the European Life+ Fund to restore more than 2,000 acres of Peak District and South Pennine moorland. This was the largest sum to be awarded to a UK project in the history of the EU Life Programme and Moors for the Future is now one of the biggest peat restoration operations in Europe.

The Peak District National Park Authority, the National Trust, the RSPB, Natural England and water utility companies are just some of the organisations which have collaborated on this project.

Peatlands are the single largest carbon reserve in the UK. As such, moorland restoration is extremely important for carbon storage.

With approximately 3 billion tonnes of carbon, more carbon is stored in UK peat than in the forests of Britain and France combined. This is the equivalent of approximately 20 years of all UK CO2 emissions. With active restoration and management, moorland can help to fix carbon indefinitely.

Peat moorlands cover less than 3% of the land surface of the Earth yet they contain twice as much carbon as the world’s forests.

Peatlands are also extremely important for:

Absorbing and storing carbon by locking up billions of tons of carbon in the form of beautiful landscapes and precious wildlife habitats.

Providing good quality drinking water – around 70% of our drinking water comes from these landscapes.

Helping to reduce the likelihood of flooding – in good condition our moorlands slow the flow of rainwater, which may reduce the likelihood of flash flooding in downstream urban areas such as were seen in the Don Valley in 2007 and Derby in 2000.

How Wildscapes are involved:

Wildscapes were contracted to help stabilise bare peat in some of the“most damaged areas of moorland" in the UK, according to the National Trust, including Kinder Scout, Saddleworth and Bleaklow.

This has been achieved by a combination of heather spreading and geo-textiling. In order to heather spread, heather is cut and harvested from local, donor moors and is spread over the worst eroding areas of blanket bog. The brash(cuttings) has four purposes:

acting as a skin, thus reducing the effects of erosion

providing a microclimate for seeds to grow in as they are protected from the harsh weather

providing seeds – heather is cut in winter when the seeds are ripe and thus they are transported onto the moors

providing a fungi that helps moorland plants to thrive

Our Land Management Team were selected to deliver this work because of their exceptional local knowledge of these delicate moorlands. They have expert heather and moorland restoration skills developed from past initiatives such as the Coalfield Heathlands project and work at Hatfield for the National Trust. Feel free to call us today on 0114 279 2667 for an informal chat about how we carry out moorland and habitat management.